Potatoes and Pee

I laugh, slightly liberated, as I even think to share this story in any public way. But really, it is just too funny to keep locked up.

So I had my septum removed about 6 weeks ago. At last check with my ol' friend the dildo cam, all looks good. We've been instructed to wait another cycle till we ttc. Fine, just fine. "WAIT" has become my middle name.

So this month we were officially "off" and is was the first time in months, I mean months, that our lives were uninterrupted by intrusions into my body. No D&E's, no surgeries, no miscarriages. As a result, we took liberties "enjoying" ourselves, ya know... together. We ended up, in the midst of our fun-fest, having a minor malfunction with our man-protection. {Ummmm, definitely not a true infertile if I still need the sheaths.} Anyhow, it was a minor incident and I didn't really think anything of it.

Earlier this week I started having some nausea and waking up at 4 am and not being able to get to sleep. It happened 4 times in a row. This was something I suffered from when I was pregnant before - sleeplessness + nausea. So while I was up on one of my 4 am jaunts to the world wide web, I took a look at the calendar. Turns out the "incident" happened a mere 3 - 4 days prior to ovulation. Opps. My RE might be ticked at me. I started to imagine how embarrassing that conversation would be. Me, apologizing to my RE for getting knocked up because my husband didn't wrap it up right. Fact is, the U is not ready for visitors yet. She still needs time to get all healed up.

So then obsession starts setting in. I started getting worried and super excited at the same time. I start doing stupid sh*t like googling "cond0m spillage," as if the internet were going to disclose whether or not I had gotten knocked up. It was pretty funny too because all of the websites were geared toward teenagers, so you got these really crazy forum questions that started with "My boyfriend" and ended with "on my leg?" Those were the days.

Then yesterday. Oh man, I had a MAJOR meld down in so many ways. First I tried to start working on job applications. That just got me thinking about how my life has been at a stand-still for the last year, and how can I apply for jobs when on paper I appear to have stopped living for the last 6 months. My failed attempts to start applications ended in a crying fit, with my dear J. attempting to console me. Then at about 6 pm I started to get the chills. The nasty 24 hour bug my family has been single-handedly distributing around south eastern pennsylvania had finally found me. By 9 pm I was in bed with a fever.

Even with the fever I was able to sleep ok, with the exception of J. sitting up, gasping and letting out a big yelp at about 3am. Strange. In the morning I woke up with a headache and still kind of sweating out the fever, but feeling on the upswing. While still in bed, I asked J. what that crazy dream was all about that made him scream in the middle of the night. He said, "Someone was strangling me." I said, " Really, who?" He hesitated and said, "It was you." I am not really sure what I am supposed to think about that, but ok. I had a dream that my students were jumping off a cliff and I didn't care. I also had lots of potatoes in my pockets. Ah, dreams - at least I will have something to talk to my new therapist about this week.

So the idea that I may have gotten knocked up was still nagging me, even though the nausea was nearly definitely related to the fact that I was fighting off that nasty stomach bug. Problem is, I am scheduled for an endometrial biopsy tomorrow and I am pretty sure that shouldn't be done while pregnant. Plus, I wanted to be able to drink heavily on New Years with a clean conscience. So I decided to run out and get a test while J. was on an errand. It was just be too foolish and neurotic to reveal to him. There are just some things about myself I prefer he would never know. One of those things happens to my love of peeing on sticks.

It is about a 10 minute walk to the drug store. On the way there I considered how foolish I was being. I envisioned one line. I wondered if it was actually possible for you to convince yourself that you were pregnant. It was busy at the store. I chose the more expensive tests that I had had early positives on before.

Here is where it gets good.
So it is mid-day and I am only on 11 dpo. Do I wait till morning? Hormone concentration will not be strong in the afternoon. It had been about 2 hours since my last trip to the girls room. Earlier this month I had a bad OPK test - a dud. So I decided to pee in a cup and dip the stick, so as not to waist the goods.

So I am on the can. I pee in the cup. I dip the stick. I deposit the cup and the stick on the radiator in front of me and reach for the TP. While reaching for the TP, I bump the cup and my remaining "products" fall to the floor !!! GROSS!!! Now I am laughing, almost hysterically at my foolish behavior. I am thinking I am pregnant when I am totally not - and I knew it. Here I am dropping cash of way too expensive tests. And now, dropping pee all over my bathroom floor??? I have gone overboard. But by going overboard I think I came back around full circle again. And somehow all those shinanigans made me feel better. I felt really ok when the test was negative. I really did. Because I am not ready yet, emotionally or physically. Because I would have felt absolutely terrible if I would have gotten pregnant and it would have ended in miscarriage. It would have been my fault for not being patient and giving my body time to heal. I also would have really struggled to explain this to my RE...

So now, for the first time in a long time, I feel kinda good. I feel like I have 6 weeks free. 6 weeks to get my shit back in order, to make some realistic plans. We'll try in February, like we said we would. And we'll just have to see how it goes from there.